Steampunk Thursday: ArmadaCon 2017

Last weekend I was a guest at the 29th ArmadaCon down in Plymouth. It was a convention I had been invited to in the past but one I had been unable to actually attend until this year.

Raring to go at ArmadaCon 2017.

ArmadaCon is only a small convention, but it is incredibly friendly, and in no time at all I was made to feel very welcome. It was also great to catch up with old friends - like Andrew Lane, Helen Stirling, Frances Hardinge, and David Wake - and to make new ones - like Mark Poles of The Shop on the Borderlands, and RB Watkinson.

Mark Poles stocking up on signed stock for The Shop on the Borderlands.

Over the course of the weekend I gave a talk about writing adventure gamebooks, and another one about my Pax Britannia steampunk novels. I also took part in an author's panel on the Sunday afternoon. But the highlight of the weekend, for me, had to be Circle of Spears' live reading of my Fighting Fantasy gamebook Night of the Necromancer. I will never look at that particular book in quite the same way again.

Mark Norman, Tracey Norman and Sam Burns of Circle of Spears attempt to keep a straight face during the Night of the Necromancer read-through... and fail!

So all that there remains for me to do now is to thank Gary, Julie, Chris, Dave the Tech Gnome, and the rest of the crew, as well as everyone who attended my talks and the Fighting Fantasy read-through. And if you're a author looking for a welcoming audience, I can wholeheartedly recommend ArmadaCon.

My memento from my time at ArmadaCon.

You can see more photographs from the weekend here.